What Happens When You Hear This Word

What is the scariest word to hear when you are starting a new project?

"YES."

When you hear the word Yes for the first time, shit gets real. You go from being "a film producer" to being A Film Producer, all your theory becomes active, and now you have to go do what you've being saying you were capable of doing. YIKES.

For years I had a project on the backburner, kinda up front, but not really, I was going to make it some day... maybe. And then one day - literally out of the blue - someone said YES to me. Mind you I had been asking around for this one big piece of the puzzle and had heard NO a LOT. I mean A LOT. Then one day in maybe February of 2015, I was scouting locations for a completely different project when I noticed a copy center that had closed a few years ago was now open again. The lights were on. I stopped in, asked to talk to the owner.

Yes. he thought it was an awesome idea, he was thrilled to hear we wanted to film a movie there. He was ready to let us have the run of the place for two weeks. He gave us a key to the store.

I had no F-ing clue what to do with that.

I literally just kept on with my tried-and-true "No Pitch" not being able to assimilate the info of a YES answer. We talked for about 45 minutes, and when I went home I told my EP (my wife) "hmmm... that was interesting,"  we immediately sat down to see if we could pull a movie out of the blue.

The project was KOPY KINGS, and the action took place in a copy center - kinda like Clerks, or High Fidelity - so securing an actual live store alleviated about 85% of the hassle of making this movie. We didn't have to build a set, we didn't have to populate that set with all the "crap" that would be in a copy center, we wouldn't have to drive all over town and shoot it piecemeal at different locations. This copy center closed at 6pm, opened at 8am, and was closed weekends. Holy. Cow.

We set about seeing how much money we could hobble together for the things that really required it - the DP, the Sound, food etc, we made lists of assets we knew we had in stuff and people, and then figured out clever angles on things that we didn't know we didn't know we had. We set a drop dead date - if we were able to make this movie by this date, we'd shelve it yet again.

By the end of June of that year, through ridiculously good luck, we had what we needed. We set a date to shoot - guided completely by the schedules of the store, and of the people who were going to work on it, and a two-week window opened up in September when the stars would align: everyone magically had those two weeks off, and it was right before the store would get very busy for the holidays.

I went low with a lot of expectations - they were realistic expectations - we'd be able to get THIS food, not THAT food, we'd be able to get THIS other location, not THAT one, this equipment versus that etc etc. And we were gleefully exceeded in almost every expectation. Other places said YES, "here's some free food," or "You can shoot here at night after we close," or "we are slow at this time on this day, come on in!" My daughter actually had a friend who was a caterer in Dallas, and just moved to Austin, and for the cost of the food, he'd make meals.

The little things that did not go exactly as we hoped turned out to not only not be very big deals, but they turned out for the best. I had to keep shaking my head and asking myself "Okay, where is the other shoe?" You see, I had previously worked on a feature that turned into a serious "Lost in La Mancha" production a few years ago, wow did it leave me gunshy for a number of years. There didn't seem to be any hassle with KOPY KINGS. And boy did I appreciate the luck and hard work and dedication of the folks who helped make this movie a reality.

We shot in 14 days on a budget that I have no idea where it came from or how it worked, we did an average of 5 takes, never doing more than 9, frequently doing just one. The actors showed up play with their A Games right out of the chute, and no one got hurt (other than a few cases of a nasty flu bug) and no one walked off the set. We had to do a little on-the-fly adjustments as anyone does, but things just worked out. Yes, we made a movie.

Post production had similar luck, finding sound and color folks who knew their shit and were gracious and helpful, one who came out of retirement to help us out, many, many folks who gave advice and referrals, and a heap of OTJ training on my part. When money ran out, we made do with spit and duct tape and paper clips, not to mention a tax refund that saved our asses.

KOPY KINGS is now getting released through streaming platforms on February 14, 2017 - and as I preview the final files it amazes me what hearing one little three letter word can do.

YES.

I hope every struggling film maker gets to hear that word at least once, it makes a huge difference.

www.kopykingsmovie.com